Gilead’s twice-yearly antiviral protected women from HIV infection in large trial

Gilead said Thursday that twice-a-year injections of a new antiviral drug, called lenacapavir, completely protected cisgender women from contracting HIV in a large Phase 3 trial.

In the study, none of the 2,134 women who received lenacapavir contracted HIV. By comparison, 16 of the 1,068 women who received the long-running daily pill Truvada contracted HIV. And 39 out of 2,136 women who received a newer daily pill called Descovy developed HIV.

“To have no infections in over 2,000 women. … I mean that’s a remarkable result,” said Joe Eron, principal investigator at the HIV/AIDS Clinical Research Unit at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

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